“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
When Tony stepped into the penthouse, a figure shrouded in shadows stood like an ebony statue just before the window; the only sound to break the silence was their mingling breaths and the gentle clink of ice against glass.
“I have come for the drink you offered, Stark, and nothing more.” The voice was tired, resigned to the point of defeat, something Tony never thought he’d hear from a god, from any god, let alone the one who stood in front of him in exhausted defeat. There was something about him that prompted Tony to put down the phone he’d pulled from his pocket.
Tony didn’t speak, but then, he didn’t need to. It seemed the gentle tap of the bottles Tony had retrieved from the bar answered for him.
The god finally turned, illuminated eerily in the moonlight and Tony stared, taking in everything the god was and trying to figure out how this could be the same man that had tried to take over the world. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, pale skin stark against the dark smudges beneath his eyes. His hair had grown long, raven locks tumbling down his shoulders in untamed waves like he’d stopped caring a long while ago. His hands held a fine tremble to them as he brought his glass to his lips, long fingers curled tightly around the glass, clinging like it was a life line. But it was his eyes that were the most terrifying; eyes whose emerald had once been so alive, smoldering and burning everything they set on. Eyes that had once scorched and captivated were now dull and empty, a shadow of what they once were (of what he once was), like he’d given too much and received too little and could no longer remember what it was like to feel anything at all.
Loki held his glass out in a silent plea, before seeming to think better of it and prizing the bottle of Macallan 1946 from Tony’s fingers, tipping his head back and bringing the bottle to his trembling lips.
His Adam’s apple bobbed with each pull and swallow, a stray drop of amber liquid clinging to his bottom lip, quivering before slipping down his chin and along the pale column of throat exposed from the dull emerald of his tunic, disappearing beneath the collar of it.
“I have a choice tomorrow,” Loki said, gazing absently out the window, the delicate neck of the bottle held carelessly (carefully) in long fingers that could just as easily shatter it. “I can either die or lose my magic for the rest of eternity. How cruel a thing it is, letting a man decide his own fate.”
How cruel a thing it was indeed, a choice between physical death or emotional peril.
“You could just not go back,” Tony suggested, but he knew it was futile.
Loki laughed but it was bitter, nothing like the maniacal cackle it had been before.
“Come now, Stark. You of all people should know the horrors of living a life you don’t wish to live.” And yeah, Tony knew. God, he knew and he desperately wished Loki didn’t have to.
Tony didn’t answer. Instead, he took the god’s hand and twined those long, smooth fingers with his shorter, rougher ones. Pulling the god flush against his body, he grabbed a handful of those inky locks and dragged Loki down until their lips were mere centimeters apart, hot breath mingling between them.
“What are you doing?” Loki’s voice was soft, a whisper of breath across Tony’s lips and Tony knew that wasn’t a question, not really.
He closed the space between them, kissing the god softly and slowly and fuck, Tony wanted (needed).
He didn’t realize Loki had teleported them to the bedroom until the backs of his legs touched the bed; he turned, pushing the god back onto the bed, their clothes already discarded in a careless heap beside the bed.
Tony took the god apart in every way he knew how, twisting, pulling, caressing until he was nothing more than a writhing, moaning mess of sweat and tears at his fingertips. Loki was beautiful when he let go like this, so fucking beautiful that Tony couldn’t breathe, forgot how. Loki was spread out beneath him, all ivory skin and long limbs exposed willingly for his pleasure. The god’s hair fanned out, stark against the eggshell of the silken sheets beneath his untamed locks. His eyes were screwed shut, his lips bitten and kiss swollen, his long fingers fisting in the sheets like he would disappear if he let go. His thighs were quivering on either side of Tony’s head, muscles of his abdomen clenching as he sought release but was unable to find.
Tony could do this forever, watch Loki fall apart, give up and give in for hours on end; take him apart over and over again until he was Tony’s and Tony’s alone. Tony gripped Loki’s thighs and sucked gently at the head of Loki’s cock, letting the god’s taste dance across his tongue- funny how he tasted like his skin; ice and winter and dying leaves…so delicious that Tony wanted to wrap himself up in Loki for the rest of eternity (however short eternity would be for them). And God knows that Tony would take and take until there was nothing left…and Loki would let him.
“Please,” the god gasped, eyes sliding open to reveal wrecked emerald orbs nearly black with lust as they locked onto Tony’s, begging where he couldn’t find his voice to do so for him.
And fuck, Tony gave.
Loki’s back arched and he screamed, spending his seed down Tony’s throat and Tony swallowed every last drop, milking the god until he heard a whimper that was more protest than pleasure.
Tony pulled off and crawled up Loki’s body, kissing him slowly and languidly, letting the god taste himself on Tony’s tongue.
“I need…” Loki began in a shaky voice, and Tony hushed him gently.
“I know,” he replied softly before he moved back between Loki’s spread legs, slowly pushing into the loosened pucker of muscle, making both of them forget they’d ever wanted anything other than this.
He fucked Loki slow and deep, giving him everything he needed and everything he never knew he wanted. For once in Tony’s life, he was giving instead of taking; selfless instead of selfish and god, it felt so fucking good. Tony fucked Loki until both of them forget that there would never be another night like this. Until it was just Tony and Loki making love to the sounds of the rain falling outside like a broken god’s tears. They fucked until they were too exhausted to move; too exhausted to remember they’d been trying to forget anything at all.
Sweet release came slowly for the both of them, climbing higher until they tipped over the edge with sharp cries of each others’ names’ and wet sobs of ecstasy.
Tony levered himself back up to Loki’s side, his arms winding around the god’s waist and pulling him back against Tony’s chest, spooning them tightly together.
“You could stay, you know,” Tony whispered into those raven locks.
“I could,” Loki agreed just as quietly.
“But you won’t.”
“But I won’t.”
They fell silent after that, both of them falling into a heavy, much needed rest wrapped tightly in each other’s arms.
*
When Tony woke the next morning, Loki was already gone.
An empty bottle of Macallan 1946 sat on the nightstand, everlasting frost clinging to it in the shape of a long fingered handprint. Tony stared at it, his mind telling him that it had been his only bottle even as his heart told him he didn’t care.
Loki might have been dead, probably was and here Tony sat alone in the bed they’d had sex in the night before, staring at the empty bottle of alcohol like the god might jump out of it and say “Surprise!”.
Tony shook his head, stood, and walked down to his lab, grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels on the way down, pretending he hadn’t wanted Loki to say goodbye.
*
That was how his days went: drink, work, piss. Over and over in an endless cycle.
He went about the next days, weeks, even months like the mindless zombie he’d become, pretending he didn’t stop to stare at the bottle sitting untouched on his nightstand in the rare times he actually went to sleep. Pretended that last night hadn’t been the first he’d let someone touch him in months. Pretended it was just a one night stand.
It was his sixth night without sleep, and he was so tired he couldn’t focus on the metal he was soldering in front of him.
“Sir,” Jarvis said softly as he burnt his hand for the fourth time in the past twenty minutes.
“I know, Jarv.”
Tony stood, turning of the soldering iron and making his way out of the lab, trusting his AI would shut everything down as it needed to be.
He didn’t see it at first, digging his fingertips into his eyes against the pounding behind them, but when he did his eyes widened before filling with uncontrolled tears. He stared at the nightstand and felt his knees, buckle; no longer able to support him, he slid to the ground with a sob that morphed into soft, teary laughter.
On the nightstand with a fresh icy handprint around the neck and filled to the brim with amber liquid sat the once empty bottle of Macallan 1946.